Closing Statements in the Noor Salman Trial

Posted on by Thor

There is some sensitive content and disturbing details included
within. If you feel you may be affected, please do not read this post.

 The court day began with Judge Paul G. Byron wanting to get a confirmation from Noor Salman that she did not want to testify in court. She spoke for the first time with a quiet “No.” Sarah Sweeney presented the prosecution’s closing statements. She would go through the several hundred items of evidence and use that to prove what Salman knew and what she did leading up to the attack. She said that everything Salman did was a green light for her husband to attack. Exhibits 1-99 covered Noor Salman’s written statements and evidence from her apartment. Exhibits 100-199 revolved around Pulse and the exhibits from 200 and up involved banking and spending.

The first part of the prosecution’s case involved proving obstruction of justice. She pointed out that Noor gave misleading information to Lieutenant William Hall, Agent Christopher Mayo, Agent T.J.Sypniewski, and Agent Ricardo Enriquez. She gave false statements and partial statements tat were intended to obscure the full truth. She claimed that Omar Mateen disconnected Facebook in 2013 and yet she communicated with him via Facebook in 2014. She claimed that her husband didn’t use the Internet in their apartment. She claimed that her husband was moderate, but an ISIS flag was found in the apartment and he had videos of be-headings on his computer. Mateen left their apartment on June 11, 2016 with a firearm but she claimed he only had one gun. Yet she knew there was a riffle case in their car since she wanted it removed before she took her drivers test. She lied twice saying he was at dinner with Nemo on June11, 2016. The broadest lie was that she didn’t know he was going to plan a terrorist attack.

Sweeney changed tack from everything said during the course of the trial saying that the target of the attack that night was NOT the Pulse Nightclub but rather Disney Springs. She also claimed that Noor knew the target was Disney. That would explain Noor’s odd comment when Lieutenant William Hall asked her to leave her apartment for questioning. She said, “Are they going to bring me to Disney?” Sweeney also claimed that Noor was confused during questioning and thought that Pulse was at Disney. When Noor could not reach her husband on the night of June11, 2016, she knew that he had committed the attack.

The couples finances consisted of an average monthly credit card bill of $1500. But From June 5 to 15, 2016 the couple spent $26,000. There were gaps in Mateen’s Internet browsing activity between 2:09a.m. and 9a.m. in which he might have shown his wife his intended target although it might not have been Pulse. Google history ended on his computer on June 10, 2016 and started again on June 12, 2016 with his search for Eve. 

Proving aiding and abetting was the prosecution’s biggest challenge. They needed to show that Noor provided material support to ISIS.  Showing Omar’s material support was easy. Sweeney showed a still from the Pulse surveillance camera that showed Omar shooting people at point blank range. But did Noor provide the same support as she slept at home?

The defense closing arguments by Charles Swift brought up some new points in Noor’s defense. A baby carriage and doll were found by Omar Mateen’s rental van parked near Pulse. But his son is too old for such a carriage. The new theory was that Omar intended to use the baby carriage to transport his rifle into Disney Springs without raising suspicion. If that were the case and Noor was an accomplice, wouldn’t it make more sense to have her push the baby carriage? Was she a victim or accomplice? Swift argued Mateen had no reason to involve his wife in his plan
to carry out mass murder June 12, 2016. “Why would he tell her?” he said. “I cannot think of an earthly reason for
it. I cannot think of one. What could she help him with?”

The defense acknowledged the heartbreaking grief of the community but reminded the jury to look at all the facts. Defense attorney Lisa Morino reminded the jury that Noor simply struggled educationally. She painted a picture of her as a simple housewife who loved her
child and was more concerned with reading romance novels that in world
politics.That she could not accept money for baby sitting a friends child. Pulse she stressed was a random target. “Where are all the girls at?” Omar asked the Pulse security, meaning he didn’t know where he was. Omar didn’t respect his wife. Why would he confide in her? She was dependent on him not the other way around. If he didn’t know what his target was that night, how could she know? The dead have been given the truth in this trial. The tragedy shouldn’t be pinned on Noor. The true terrorist was already killed by police on the evening of the attack. “Don’t makeNoor Salman the last victim of Omar Mateen.” Swift concluded.


After closing statements, Judge Byron read the 57 pages of jury instructions. Basically they had to decide on two counts. One was obstruction of justice and the other was aiding and abetting.

The jury instructions said convicting Salman “Requires proof that
(she was) intentionally associated with or participated in the crime,
not just proof that (she) was simply present at the scene of a crime or
knew about it.” The help can be just
about anything including, “financial services, lodging, safe houses,
false documentation or identification, communications equipment,
facilities and weapons.” If convicted, Noor could face life in prison.

The Final Defense Witness

Posted on by Thor

There is some sensitive content and disturbing details included
within. If you feel you may be affected, please do not read this post.

 Dr. Frumkin was the final witness for the defense. He is a clinical and forensic psychologist. His main office is in South Miami. He specializes in disputed confessions. This is when someone partially confesses and then retracts the confession. he was paid $390 an hour to testify and had been paid $130,000 to date to conduct interviews accessing Noor Salman.

He spoke of a college study in which students were told to write their papers on a certain computer and warned that if they pressed the alt key, the computer would crash. A remote system was set up so that the computer could be crashed remotely. When asked about the crashes, students would often confess. In another study, students would have three interviews with researchers and the idea that the student committed a felony as a child was planted into the discussion. Students would begin to accept this altered history. The Dr. noted that the average interrogation is 1.5 hours. Any interrogation over 3 hours is excessive. Noor Salman was interrogated for over 11 hours.

Frumkin has a test which gauges how a subject yields to untrue facts. He called this the yield shift sustainability score. In his talks with Noor, he found her to have odd thinking. She was alienated, self conscious and introverted. Her emotions were all over the place, like a yo-yo as she put it. She suffered from auditory hallucinations, hearing banging sounds and smelling the cologne from her deceased grandfather. She is anxious in a room alone and obsessively scratches her arms. She is anxious when she eats around other people. She calls her son every day at 3 p.m.

He said that Noor is more accommodating that 90% of the population and that she is more anxious than 96% of the population. She is also 90% more deferential and submissive than most people. The Wexler intelligence scale rated her at 4 with an IQ of 84 meaning that 86% of people are brighter than her and that she is in the lower 14 percentile range. The college Noor attended was a for profit institution and it was shut down because the institution lied about the placements of grads in the workplace.

The Reed Technique of interrogation was used on Noor Salman by the FBI. Officers at first accept denials and minimize the seriousness of the offense. Te technique is used to get facts from guilty suspects but it can also elicit false confessions from someone who is eager to please and susceptible to coercion. The interrogation escalated into confrontation and a refusal to allow denials. Step 9 of the process is writing down confessions of the suspect and having them initial those documents.

The Dr. stresses the Noor is more likely to give a false confession because of her mental illness, anxiety and the fact that she isn’t very bright. Sleep deprivation makes one more susceptible and Noor was suffering from menstrual cramps when her was being interrogated.

Sarah Sweeney of the prosecution cross examined the Dr. She wanted to know more about the GSS test which is designed to access susceptibility and suggestibility. He admitted that as intelligence goes up, the susceptibility to yield went down. Sarah noted that Noor was removed from a special ed class in 5th grade because of her academic progress. When discussing Noor’s obsessive compulsive disorder, Sarah showed a photo from Noors home of her dresser. It was covered with lots of brightly colored baubles. She asked the doctor if she moved an object on that dresser, a half inch would Noor notice? He claimed she would. I believe she was trying to prove that an obsessive compulsive person wouldn’t live in such chaos, but to me she proved the opposite. According to the Dr. Noor fully denied knowing what was going to happen but then “gave in” when an officer refused too believe her. She tried to give the officers what they wanted so she could get home to her son.

Another stipulation of testimony was read to the jury by the defense. It was by Pulse security guard Neal Whittleton who describing a short conversation
with Mateen minutes before the attack began.

Matten said to him, “Hey, why is it so slow tonight? Where are all the girls at?” That was an odd statement making it seem like Omar had no idea he was in a gay club. Whittleton
walked away from him and over to a DJ booth. He said he could feel
someone staring at him and looked up to see it was Mateen. “You’re security, right?”  “I see you here all the time.” Mateen said. Whittleton did not recognize Mateen. “He was trying to see if I had a gun
on me,” Whittleton later realized. “I had no idea that he was
the shooter.”